Favorite Poets, Part 2.

I promised the other half of my top 20 favorite poets way back in March. Well, here's the other half, at long last. Again, there is no particular order to my madness.

Shel Silverstein
I have loved Shel Silverstein since I was old enough to read his trio of poetry books. This poem in particular used to make me cry with laughter. I read this aloud (with some difficulty) to my nieces when they were young, and I can’t wait to do the same with my boys someday.

Twistable Turnable Man
He's the Twistable Turnable Squeezable Pullable
Stretchable Foldable Man.
He can crawl in your pocket or fit your locket
Or screw himself into a twenty-volt socket,
Or stretch himself up to the steeple or taller,
Or squeeze himself into a thimble or smaller,
Yes he can, course he can,
He's the Twistable Turnable Squeezable Pullable
Stretchable Shrinkable Man.
And he lives a passable life
With his Squeezable Lovable Kissable Hugable
Pullable Tugable Wife.
And they have two twistable kids
Who bend up the way that they did.
And they turn and they stretch
Just as much as they can
For this Bendable Foldable
Do-what-you're-toldable
Easily moldable
Buy-what you're-soldable
Washable Mendable
Highly Dependable
Buyable Saleable
Always available
Bounceable Shakeable
Almost unbreakable
Twistable Turnable Man.

Carl Sandburg
I love Sandburg's energy and visceral imagery in his poetry. It's fun to read aloud because it's so strong. If you don't mind some foul language I highly recommend you check out "Howl," particularly if you can find a recording of Sandburg reading it. I love this poem because even though it describes the city as it was in the early 1900s, it still carries a lot of the same spirit today.

CHICAGO
     HOG Butcher for the World,
   
     Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
   
     Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;

     Stormy, husky, brawling,

     City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
     have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
     luring the farm boys.

And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it

     is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to

     kill again.

And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
     faces of women and children I have seen the marks
     of wanton hunger.

And having answered so I turn once more to those who
     sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
     and say to them:

Come and show me another city with lifted head singing

     so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
     job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
     little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
     as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
          Bareheaded,

          Shoveling,

          Wrecking,

          Planning,

          Building, breaking, rebuilding,

Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with

     white teeth,

Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
     man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has

     never lost a battle,

Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.

     and under his ribs the heart of the people,

               Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of

     Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
     Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
     Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

William Wordsworth
I know that Wordsworth is sometimes a joke to people, as he has been considered the cheesiest of the Romantic poets, but I really enjoy the below poem. I saw a special on HBO sponsored by the Poetry Foundation in which Dave Matthews read this poem, and I just fell in love with it.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Robert Frost
Frost is especially talented with extended metaphors. I really love the way he describes his images; I feel like if I could paint I would be able to reproduce exactly what he had in mind when he wrote it. I also like “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “The Road Not Taken,” but I think this one is my very favorite.

Mending Wall
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me~
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Gwendolyn Brooks
I have always enjoyed sharing Brooks’ poetry with my students when I was teaching. This one is my favorite. I recommend listening to the author reading it herself. It sounds almost like music.

The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.

We real cool. We 
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We 
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We 
Die soon.

Ogden Nash
Nash had a great mind for light verse. I particularly adore his poems about animals. There are many, but this one is one of my personal favorites.

The Centipede
I objurgate the centipede,
A bug we do not really need.
At sleepy-time he beats a path
Straight to the bedroom or the bath.
You always wallop where he’s not,
Or, if he is, he makes a spot.


Elizabeth Barrett Browning
She and her husband were successful Romantic poets. I enjoy both of their portrayals of their love.

Sonnet XLIII from Sonnets of the Portuguese
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.


Robert Browning
The faithful husband of Elizabeth.

Meeting at Night
THE gray sea and the long black land; 

And the yellow half-moon large and low; 

And the startled little waves that leap 

In fiery ringlets from their sleep, 

As I gain the cove with pushing prow, 

And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears; 

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch 

And blue spurt of a lighted match, 

And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each! 



Gertrude Stein
My senior quote in my high school yearbook was one of Gertrude Stein’s: “Let me listen to me and not to them.” I have always felt that this motto has served me well, both in saving me the eventual embarrassment involved in being trendy, and in helping me to avoid relying too much on others’ approval. This poem is a gorgeous modernist portrait of a tight knit family.

The house was just twinkling in the moon light, 
And inside it twinkling with delight,
Is my baby bright.
Twinkling with delight in the house twinkling 
with the moonlight,
Bless my baby bless my baby bright,
Bless my baby twinkling with delight,
In the house twinkling in the moon light,
Her hubby dear loves to cheer when he thinks
and he always thinks when he knows and he always 
knows that his blessed baby wifey is all here and he
is all hers, and sticks to her like burrs, blessed baby


Lewis Carroll
Carroll, most famous for his pair of books, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, was also an accomplished poet of his own. He wrote these stories for a young girl he knew named Alice. If you look closely at the following poem, the first letter of each line is a letter of her name: Alice Pleasance Liddell.

A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky
A BOAT beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July —

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear —

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream —
Lingering in the golden gleam —
Life, what is it but a dream?